Loyalty Marketing

Mountain View, Calif. – Google is reportedly piloting a service known as In-Store Attribution Transaction Reporting in AdWords that lets retailers compare how their AdWords Internet search campaigns affect in-store sales. According to the Wall Street Journal, the service matches data from anonymous tracking cookies to in-store sales data provided by technology providers including DataLogix, Acxiom, LiveRamp, and Epsilon.

American Express added Walmart’s U.S. network of 4,100 stores as locations where customers can participate in the card issuers prepaid Serve offering.

Austin, Texas -- Whole Foods Market claimed the honor for best brand on Pinterest at the Shorty (the Shorties) Awards on April 7. The Shorties are an annual awards event that honors the best short-form content creators on Twitter and on other social media sites.

Whole Foods Market joined Pinterest in 2011, and currently has 180,000 followers.

New product introductions aren’t what they used to be as evidenced by Doritos “Bold Flavor Experiment” involving mysterious variants of the spicy chips.

The Frito-Lay division of PepsiCo this week is introducing three new flavors of the Doritos Jacked brand to the snack food but not telling shoppers what they are called. The unconventional approach to generating trial also involves a unique contest element to encourage shoppers to digitally engage with the brand.

MasterCard is in the process of acquiring Pinpoint Pty. Ltd., an Australian provider of loyalty and rewards services to financial institutions across the Asia Pacific region. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2014.

Pinpoint was founded in 1984. Headquartered in Sydney, it has a growing footprint across the region into markets such as China, Hong Kong, India, Taiwan and Japan. Its customer base includes financial institutions and merchants.

Chobani Greek Yogurt is a young brand that has enjoyed tremendous success and to keep the momentum going the company is employing a classic CPG strategy of promoting consumption during different day parts and inspiring new usage occasions.

In essence, Chobani wants Americans to eat more yogurt and recently announced six new products to launch in July that extend the brand beyond breakfast.The new products include Chobani Greek Yogurt Oats, Chobani Indulgent, Chobani Kids, Chobani Seasonal, Chobani Kitchen and Chobani Simply 100 Greek Yogurt in key lime and pineapple Coconut.

Purchase, N.Y. – MasterCard has entered into an agreement to acquire Pinpoint Pty. Ltd., an Australian provider of loyalty and rewards services to financial institutions across the Asia Pacific region. This acquisition is expected to close in second quarter 2014.

Woonsocket, R.I. — Rob Price, senior VP marketing and advertising and chief marketing officer for CVS/pharmacy, has left the company to pursue a new role.   

“Rob led the retail marketing team during a period of tremendous growth and strong financial performance and brought numerous positive changes to the business. We thank Rob for his important contributions and wish him the best of luck in the next phase of his career,” the company stated.